Here lies the restless gaze of the gargoyle,

 

the grizzled gargoyle, the too freaky to assimilate gargoyle, the “ you should tone it down” “ you sound funny” “your look funny” gargoyle. I stare from a distance that’s far enough for your comfort. Here, I opine away over things that I chipped away in my past life to become more agreeable, more gentle, more lovable, more fuckable by you. I lived through this pageant day in day out…And would you believe it? I won every ball, every sash, every crown, every time! I won by trading parts of me that made me more like you. I became your object of desire, an aspiration, an example, a porcelain doll on your mantle, a tchotchke. My otherness was so threatening that you made me turn into something homogenous- a nothing. 

 

One day, my pageant crown became too heavy for my porcelain head that it cracked my face open. The crack was right between my eyes. The blood dripped through the crack, past my nostril, onto the vermilion border of my lip. They say that blood smells metallic, and it sure does. Accumulating under my nose, my blood smelt like rotting iron. It didn’t taste like rotting iron though, It tasted like freedom!

 

Crepey fingers push through the fault line between my eyes and smash opens my porcelain body into shards and congealed blood. Filthy, disgusting, revolting, beautiful, triumphant, euphoric- I’m renewed. I roll my shoulders back and crack my neck to feel the new found mobility in my new form. I crawl out of the window, onto the roof, past the chimney, to the end corner. I find myself the perfect spot.

 

Here lies the restless gaze of the gargoyle. He’s watching you, watch yourself through his eyes.